Roadwork detoured by budget fix

Jon Hilkevitch, Tribune transportation reporterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

The state's diversion of millions of dollars from much-needed highway improvements in the next five years could mean much longer commutes for motorists over roads where temporary patches may be patched again.

A total of $367 million earmarked for transportation is being rerouted to help reduce the multibillion-dollar state deficit.

Funding cutbacks threaten to postpone repair and expansion of secondary roads in the Chicago area and will mean the loss of almost 10,000 construction jobs, according to an analysis by industry experts.

Mega-projects, including the reconstruction of the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago and Interstate Highway 74 in the Peoria area, are assured of moving forward, state transportation officials said.

But many smaller but critically important local improvements could be put on hold if what Illinois Transportation Secretary Tim Martin calls "unforeseen circumstances" occur. These projects include the long-needed Algonquin Bypass in McHenry County, widening Illinois Highway 22 in Cook and Lake Counties and easing bottlenecks in towns along the busy Randall Road corridor, according to local transportation and industry officials.

The six-county Chicago metropolitan area, which receives nearly half of the state's transportation funding, can expect to bear about the same share of cutbacks.

The budget deal raiding the transportation fund was kept under wraps by the administration of Gov. Rod Blagojevich and legislative leaders until the final hours of the spring legislative session, which ended June 1.

The governor and lawmakers promised some of the money would eventually be reimbursed, but that may be difficult if state revenues don't pick up and projected budget savings fail to materialize.

Uncertainty about the timely renewal of federal transportation funding in Congress also puts the state's road-repair timetable up for grabs.

At stake is maintaining the state's progress under Illinois FIRST in reducing the backlog of roads and bridges in poor condition, as well as advancing projects designed to relieve traffic congestion.

And road-building, which puts good-paying jobs out on the street, is expected to play a much smaller role in boosting the state economy over the next five years than it has to date.

"The reduction in the 2004 road program translates to 9,500 construction jobs that won't be created in Illinois," said Mark Strawn, a lobbyist for the Associated General Contractors of Illinois. "It's coming at a time the economy is absolutely shot."

Higher eventual costs

Industry experts warned that many projects will be deferred and others will be downgraded from reconstruction to resurfacing and patching jobs, driving up costs when the complete overhauls are eventually carried out.

"Chicago-area drivers will have longer commutes that waste more of their time," Strawn said.

Members of the leading road-industry group in Illinois are already starting to push for the formation of a road trust fund, similar to legislation in California and other states, to ensure that taxes and fees collected for transportation are used only for transportation. Iowa, Michigan and Missouri have adopted constitutional protections to prevent road funds from being used for general governmental purposes, but no such safeguards exist in Illinois.

"We now have a much stronger case for a trust fund to make to the public," said Bill Grams, executive director of the Illinois Road and Transportation Builders Association.

"Up till now, the thinking was that new bridges and congestion-relief projects were so important that nobody would dare touch the money," Grams said.

Illinois transportation officials, while dismayed about the unprecedented siphoning off of road-building dollars, said the situation through next year is manageable so long as a promise is kept to repay the Illinois Department of Transportation a portion of the diverted funds.

"We are not slipping yet. In fiscal 2004 there will be no more bad bridges or roads than the previous year," Martin said. "Can we say that in the years to come? No.

"We've got to fix for a long-term basis how we pay for vital infrastructure improvements," Martin added.

Martin said no projects had been dropped yet from the state road-building program, which he said compares favorably to spending in the early 1990s before Illinois FIRST.

"The bottom line is we can't keep spending money that the state doesn't have," Martin said.

In May Blagojevich announced his five-year road program. Fiscal 2004 spending is budgeted at $1.8 billion, declining in each subsequent year, compared to $2.3 billion a year in the last three years.

About $140 million of the $367 million funding diversion will not be repaid, according to the state Transportation Department. The remaining $227 million is to be returned when the state's general revenue fund reaches a positive balance, said department spokesman Matt Vanover. But it's unclear when the state will be out of the red.

Officials representing the state road-building industry predicted the five-year plan will start to unravel by 2005 unless new funding sources are tapped and a trust fund is created to protect spending designated for road improvements from being used to rescue the state budget.

"The problem with comparing the current situation to the pre-Illinois FIRST days is that they were horrible days marked by rampant deterioration of the system," said Grams.

Projects involving 1,550 miles of roads and 333 bridges were completed in the state last year, according to the Transportation Department. The work created 55,000 highway construction jobs in 2002, the agency said. Officials said Illinois FIRST allowed the state to reduce the backlog of roads needing repair to a record low 1,462 miles last year.

State officials, meanwhile, are counting heavily on approval of new federal funding for a large share of local road repairs. The biggest projects are the $505 million Dan Ryan project, reconstructing the north-south section of Upper and Lower Wacker Drive, estimated to cost $250 million, and rebuilding and adding lanes on the Kingery Expressway (Interstate Highway 80), a $367 million project scheduled to begin in 2005.

It's possible that federal budget woes could delay renewal of the transportation legislation. But even if it is approved, the state will have difficulty coming up with the required matching funds.

Future cuts possible

"If Congress doesn't reauthorize the federal bill, it's a strong possibility the state road program would be cut more substantially in the [later] years," said State Rep. Frank Mautino (D-Spring Valley), who agreed to support Blagojevich's funding diversion as a onetime sacrifice.

State spending on roads could fall to as little as $1 billion a year, according to some estimates, if federal spending is frozen.

"We won't leave any [federal] money on the table," Martin said, repeating Blagojevich's pledge to match every federal dollar available with the required state funds. But Martin acknowledged "the mechanism for doing it is still unknown."